Oddly, Kellogg’s maintains that, “…science shows that these antioxidants help support the immune system.” I sent them a note last week, requesting literature citations supporting this position. No reponse yet.
While at my family’s breakfast table over the weekend, a Kellogg’s Cocoa Krispies box caught my eye. “Now helps support your child’s immunity,” the box blares. On the back, Snap, Crackle, and Pop are in superhero form – masks, fighting poses and all.
The trouble is, the claim is not supported by any real scientific evidence. Yes, vitamins and antioxidants in natural foods like fresh fruits and vegetables are part of a healthy diet. But exactly what role vitamin-fortified foods play in helping your immune cells fight disease is not understood. (Read more…)
While home with the flu yesterday, I watched several episodes of Discovery Channel’s Cash Cab – the surprisingly entertaining show where unsuspecting New York cab riders are invited to participate in a quiz show (and win cash) while riding in a cab to their destination.
Almost every “ride” featured a basic science/health trivia question. A sampling:
In 1953, scientists Watson and rick discovered that DNA takes what unique shape? (Read more…)
The ability to do math has long been thought of as a purely human trait – it comes with the whole higher-intelligence thing. But what if the ability to do math wasn’t as restricted to our makeup as we thought? Are we really as special as we think we are, or is our ego much larger than our reality?
Recent studies are turning up mathematical abilities in many different species of animals. Chickens, bees, and of course monkeys have all shown promise in being able to deal with simple mathematical operations, like differentiating between numbers, counting, and summing. The animals are performing math linguistically like we do – they are not physically counting out objects or identifying numbers. Rather, it is some sort of innate ability constituting rough math. (Read more…)
Every day I want to learn something new. Today, what I learned was not only new, but also involved very cool science. I was catching up on listening to some podcasts and I heard a story about a guy named Michael Musnick. Mr. Musnick was described in the story as a “citizen scientist” who lives in Duchess County, New York. With no formal training, he wrote a grant to study wood turtles in the Great Swamp in Duchess County. He wanted to study the turtles because he had the time to do so and, in his own words, he thought the turtles were cute.
His study involved attaching radio transmitters to the shells of wood turtles. During his studies, he observed and counted dead wood turtles on a set of railroad tracks. New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority has a train rail running right through the area he was studying. What he discovered was that the dead wood turtles were not being killed by passing trains, but were getting stuck between the rails and were dying from the summer heat. On his own, he came up with a solution….turtle bridges. What the heck is that? Click here and take a look at the video.
So, today I learned what a turtle bridge looks like and what purpose it serves. But the thing I find really cool about this story is that a private citizen had an idea to study something in the world around him, discovered something new, and came up with a simple solution to a problem. It makes me want to run out and look more closely at the world around me. Is there something that I’ve seen before but never thought deeply enough about to allow me to see how I can lend a hand? How about you, reader? If you look more closely at the world today, will you spot something new? Let me know!
The 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded on Monday to three American scientists: Elizabeth H. Blackburn (University of California, San Francisco), Carol W. Greider (Johns Hopkins University), and Jack W. Szostak (Harvard). The three discovered telomeres, short sequences of DNA at the end of each chromosome that act as a protective cap, helping to limit how many times a cell can divide. This New York Times article has a nice description of telomeres and the broader significance of this work for cancer therapies and aging research.
So how much federal funding was invested in this Nobel Award? According to the National Institutes of Health, approximately $32 million between the three researchers. To the average reader, this sure sounds like a lot. But when you consider that an average 4-year research grant to support a small lab can easily total $1.5 million, and many labs have two or more, it’s actually a bargain.
The recognition that telomeres play an important role in aging and cancer – which was not foreseen – serves as yet another reminder why research dollars invested in “basic research” are dollars invested wisely.
As an aside, every time I think of telomeres I recall one of my favorite Saturday Night Live skits, “Stand Up and Win.” It’s the one featuring Jerry Seinfeld as M.C. of a game show. The winner receives a year’s supply of the plastic thingies that protect the ends of shoelaces. Seinfeld exclaims, “They don’t have a name!”
This morning, I was speaking to a friend who works for the Minnesota Department of Public Health. His job there involves HIV/AIDS testing, awareness, and education programming for the Minneapolis area. He told me an interesting fact. In Minneapolis, over the past year there has been a 100% increase in the number of HIV infections among people tested in his clinic. When I asked him if the number of people being tested had increased during the same testing period, I expected him to say, “Yes.” One could argue, therefore, that the increase in HIV(+) people being tested was not truly a 100% increase. I was surprised and dismayed when he responded that the number of people being tested was actually smaller than the previous reporting period. If the number of cases doubled over the previous year but the number of people being tested was actually lower, what does that mean? My friend, Charlie, and I simultaneously said over the phone, “What the heck is going on in Minneapolis?” (Read more…)
This week, the New York Times published a nice profile on Nobel Laureate Martin Chalfie at Columbia University. Chalfie shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry last year for his work on an amazing protein found in jellyfish called Green Fluorescent Protein, or GFP. The article is a great reminder of how very basic research on jellyfish and worms, of all things, yields invaluable scientific tools and knowledge.
GFP has the natural property of absorbing invisible ultraviolet light and producing green light – a discovery made in 1961 by Osamu Shimomura (who also shared the 2008 Nobel Award with Roger Tsien and Chalfie).
Chalfie’s “aha” moment, in 1989 at a department seminar, was a recognition that the light-producing properties of GFP could be harnessed as a sort of molecular flashlight. (Read more…)
While at my family’s breakfast table over the weekend, a Kellogg’s Cocoa Krispies box caught my eye. “Now helps support your child’s immunity,” the box blares. On the back, Snap, Crackle, and Pop are in superhero form – masks, fighting poses and all.